The Sportin' Life

by Nancy Frederick

  On the way out we noticed a bunch of flyers for some singles’ networking thing, and he picked one up, saying, “Hey—look at this—there’s some kind of singles’ networking group here in L.A.. I’m going to give this to Liana—maybe she can meet a decent guy at one of their events instead of the weirdoes she usually gets involved with. Maybe you should go to one of their events—you could dance and take your mind off Bart for an evening.”

  I took the flyer out of his hand with a weak smile, and put it in my handbag, knowing I would never go. To appease Ace and to let him think that his suggestion was helping me, I said, “Thanks, pal, maybe I will.”

  He just put his arm around me and led me to his Porsche for the ride home. “Look at this,” he said, “There’s a New Year’s Eve bash here at Cutters tomorrow night. Of course that can’t compare with our Gone With The Wind fest. You know you’re invited.”

  “Thanks, Ace, I’ve already seen Gone With The Wind, twice I think.”

  “Geez, Fauna, everybody’s seen it twice. Violet’s only twelve, but she’s seen it at least five time. It a great New Year’s Eve movie. You know… ‘As God is my witness, I’ll never get drunk again….’”

  I laughed and he laughed and the next evening I thought about going to his New Year’s movie party but I got drunk instead, much drunker than Clark Gable did when he carried Vivien Leigh up the stairs that night. I sat in the silk robe that I kept in the house for Bart to wear when he came over and drank a bottle of champagne by myself without even the television for company.

  Eventually I walked to the closet I hardly ever open and looked at my stripper clothes. There they hung as the useless evidence of a past that no longer mattered to me. Unfortunately my whole life was in the past now. The champagne bubbles were fizzing in my brain, and although I could walk and talk quite normally, I couldn’t think straight at all. I threw off the robe, pulled on a skin tight tube top and leather skirt, my highest heels, and looked in the mirror. There was Fauna, the toast of Las Vegas. All she needed was a little makeup, which my hands, as steady as any surgeon’s, applied efficiently. Then I went out to get into Bart’s car, to sit in the back seat as I always did.

  But Gus saw me walking toward the car, and assuming that I was going out for New Year’s, he seated me and turned on the ignition, waiting patiently for me to instruct him as to our whereabouts. The singles flyer was in my bag, and their party seemed as likely a destination as any other, so I had him drive me to Cutter’s, where I got out and told him to go home.

  I looked around at the crowd and noticed two things—I was beginning to sober up, and the closer to sober I got, the more nervous I felt. Social situations still always make me ill at ease. There was plenty more champagne available, and it was a good antidote to sobriety . The place was filled with people, most of them looking happy or tying to, and I bet all of them were more naturally at east than I was even after enough champagne to christen a ship. There were men in suits and girls in dress up dresses, but there wasn’t anyone in micro-mini leather and spandex, and it was almost like a return to my old days where my go-to solution to awkwardness was just to flaunt my body. That old familiar heat rose up inside me and I began looking around the room for a man, a man who could make me come. For the first time in more than a month, Bart’s name wasn’t an echo that filled my mind like a never-ending mantra.

  I walked around the floor, looking at the guys and enjoying having them looking at me. Then I spotted Liana. I tried to avoid her, realizing that she would probably be appalled when she saw the getup I was wearing, but she spotted me, and I had to go over. I waited for her disapproval, but all she said was, “Fauna, it’s good to see you. How are you getting along?” He glance was filled with sympathy and understanding, and she put her hand on my shoulder as if to comfort me.

  I looked at her and smiled, and wished we could be friends, but she was so intimidating to me the thought of opening up to her seemed beyond my abilities. She seemed so perfect and capable and was so pretty and poised, all the things I wished to be and knew would never happen. Liana was wearing the most beautiful silk dress, charmeuse, I guess it was, fluid and beautifully cut in its understated elegance and a string of pearls that looked like they had been handed down as a family treasure. She had so much class I was surprised that she was willing to be seen in my company, even when I was dressed respectably, but especially now.

  “Want to check out the buffet? It’s the best looking thing in this place,” Liana quipped, and so I followed her to the spread and filled a plate with some food, and joined her at a table to eat. “I hate these things,” Liana confided, “I’m always so…”

  And I chimed in “Nervous,” as she finished her sentence, “Bored.”

  I looked at her with amazement, “Bored? How can you be bored at one of these things? I’m always scared to death, at least I used to be when I went to parties, but of course I haven’t been to any in a long time, except now.” I was mumbling and embarrassed.

  Liana looked at me with understanding eyes and she said simply, “Just be yourself Fauna. Try to have fun. You’re not here for a job interview!”

  I laughed then and felt a little better. The fact was that I could have bought and sold most of these people, or at least could compare assets favorably. I began to warm up to Liana and to think that maybe she and I could be a little more friendly, after all she was Ace’s sister, and she had to share a lot of his good qualities.

  It was then that this guy came up to us, naturally because he saw Liana, and I realized that I could never compete with a woman like this, no matter how much bigger my cup size was than hers. I looked at the guy and liked him right away, I don’t know why, except maybe because he had an intensity that kind of reminded me of Bart’s take charge nature. Our eyes met during the introduction, and I realized that he was staring at me, not at Liana, and when he asked me to dance instead of her, I couldn’t believe it. I wished I was wearing something nicer because all of a sudden I realized how cheap my clothes really were.

  It didn’t matter to this guy—his name was Lou—and it felt exciting the way he held me in his arms, pressing me closer and closer against him despite the fact that there were people around who probably thought that we were acting like dogs in heat. It had been a long time since anybody had the nerve or the chance to treat me like that in public and it was as much of a turn on as it ever had been.

  Lou was hot and I was hot for him, and when he pushed me into a closet, it seemed like the sexiest idea in the world. He was nothing at all like Bart. There was no sense that he was making love to me, and I wasn’t making love to him. He was rough and brusque and macho and he was going to fuck me and I didn’t have a choice or want one. And then he was fucking me, and I was hot the way I never had been hot until a busboy interrupted us and I figured Lou would pull out and stop. Instead he pulled my top down and exposed my boobs to the astonished boy who watched us like someone in a trance. I got hotter and wetter, thinking about us fucking and how it looked to the boy. Eventually Lou snarled at him to get out, and as the boy turned to go, Lou squeezed my nipples so hard I wanted to cry out, but I couldn’t make my mouth work. And then he did it again and by then I forgot about the boy and the pain and I came and I came and I came.

  And then we were finished and we straightened up and looked into each other’s eyes. “I don’t know you at all,” Lou said, “And you don’t know me, but I promise you something. I’ll give you everything you’ll need and I’ll take care of you. Let’s get married. Hell, fuck the prenup—let’s fly to Vegas tonight and get married. You won’t be sorry.”

  I thought about it, about my life, about this intense stranger who was offering to make me come for the rest of my life. Did he know that I had never been able to do it before? How else could he promise to give me everything I needed if he didn’t know that what I needed was to come? The champagne bubbles were tickling my brain and none of it made sense. I said to him, “Could we drive—I’ve had too much to drink to fly
.”

  So we walked together to the parking building and he helped me into his car. When I saw it was a Rolls, I figured that everything would turn out all right.

  Kevin

  In Sickness And in Health

  Two days after moving into my house, I got the flu. Thank God some furniture had already been delivered, or I would have been collapsed on the floor instead of in my brand new bed. The whole fall had gone dismally for me, and now Christmas was approaching and there was no woman in my life, just an occasional date now and then with women with whom I didn’t seem to click. I was out of Lou’s house and into my home at last, but there I was alone, miserable, and then sick.

  I lay there in my nice new bed, the beautiful antique bed from a classy shop on Melrose, and tried to look out the windows, which were bare. My eyes wouldn’t focus. Birds were chirping outside the window, but my ears were so clogged they sounded like singing being transmitted from the bottom of a well. I felt like I too was buried at the bottom of a well.

  It didn’t matter how in shape I was or how healthy. The flu is an equal-opportunity virus, and it had taken residence inside of me for what seemed like eternity. I could hardly stagger to the bathroom, and going downstairs to the kitchen was a near impossibility. There was virtually nothing in the house to eat, but since I was too sick to desire food, it didn’t matter. My refrigerator was stocked with beer and champagne, but they at this point were hardly the fluids of choice. Luckily I had also bought a large bottle of orange juice, some English muffins, and a dozen eggs on the off chance that a new woman might come along and would stay over for breakfast. For a week, I lived on juice, forcing myself to eat an occasional muffin or egg, food which I guess nourished me despite my inability to taste it.

  Over and over I would moan to myself like a small, injured child, “I’m sick. I’m sick.” And voicing that fact always made me feel better, as if there were a good reason for my misery and physical ruin. My bones were stiff and achy, and merely turning in bed increased my level of agony, causing me to moan once again, “I’m sick, I’m sick.” Then back I sank, down into the feverish delirium of the flu.

  I could have called Lou for a prescription, which undoubtedly he could have given me, something to relieve the body aches and the stuffy nose, but in my debilitated state, it seemed that he only treated women, and that wasn’t me, so I suffered alone in my bed all through the holidays.

  Women were the problem. I needed a woman to take care of me. I’m a sensitive person, and it’s hard to be sick on your own. What good is life without someone to bring you a glass of juice, to stroke your head and murmur understandingly over your flu-wracked body? I had been imprudent, breaking up with Sherry and Sienna at the same time. If I hadn’t done that, one or the other of them would have been available to see me through this crisis. Even Holly would have been better than lying in my bed all alone and miserable without another human being even to call the mortuary should I die.

  For a while I thought about getting back together with any one of them, at least until this crisis passed. My brain was fuzzy and thinking it over took all my energy and stamina. In between each idea, I’d fall asleep like a narcoleptic, completely without control over the functions of my body. Then I’d waken, feeling no better, and still in the middle of the dilemma of which woman I should try to retrieve to save myself from misery and death by flu and solitude.

  Holly was the homiest of all, and she probably even knew how to make chicken soup from scratch, something hardly any women can do any more. Holly would be so happy to hear from me that she’d run right out to the market and buy a chicken, some herb tea, aspirins, and all sorts of other ingredients that my tired and disease-wracked brain couldn’t even imagine at that point. Holly would run right over and make that chicken soup, assuring my survival and even a rapid cure.

  Oh Holly. I could almost smell the aroma of that soup which she would make to cure me. She was such a pretty girl and she was so crazy about me that it was a shame that our affair never went any further. Where else could I find a woman who would put her priorities so far behind my own that I felt pampered, adored, and treasured? I thought of all the wonderful moments we’d shared and the affection for me that always shone out of her eyes. She was a pretty girl, well, except for her teeth, and maybe I should have married her. Then she’d be here right now, taking care of me and this flu wouldn’t be so bad. And then she could go to the dentist and have that tooth straightened.

  I thought about Holly, and her face drifted in and out of my memory, like a watery image floating to and fro in my mind. I fell asleep for a while, but awoke after an hour or so, and her face was still floating above me, and I began to regard her image as some kind of divine apparation. Maybe this was a message from God that I should settle down, maybe with Holly. It was as clear as a vision during the flu can be. So I reached for the phone and dialed her number.

  It rang and rang, maybe five times before she answered. “Hello,” she said cheerfully. Her voice was as upbeat and happy as ever and it was good to hear her again. I became lost in the sound of her voice as she said, “Hello…hello?” There was Holly, a sweet, kind, caring girl who loved me, at the other end of the line. Holly, who wanted to be married and to have a home. “Hello…is anyone there?” she asked. Funny, that was the same thing I always wondered about her. And then she hung up.

  “I’m sick,” I moaned, hanging up the phone and turning painfully over, “I’m sick.” And once again I slept. The night poured in my windows again, and instead of feeling better, it was clear that the flu was winning the battle. My body aches were worse, my eyes were blearier, I couldn’t breathe at all. The night is the worst time to be sick, because you’re more alone at night than at any other time. Here I was in a brand new house with some furniture, most of my things still in boxes, even my stereo still packed away, very little food in the fridge and not even a neighbor to check on me. Not having met the neighbors yet, I could die here and it would take forever for anyone to get a clue and come discover my body. Being alone is terrible.

  What about Sienna? I had broken up with her because of Sherry. Sherry was so promising, so sexy and intriguing that it seemed we were a real team. Sienna was just a casual date, so I decided to concentrate all my energy on Sherry, in the hope that falling in love would be mutual. So I just stopped calling Sienna after our fourth or fifth date. In fact, that meant that we hadn’t broken up at all. We just drifted apart. It probably wouldn’t be that hard to rekindle something that never really ended.

  Sienna is a model, long and lean, and a lot of fun to address. It was nice to escort her places because she was so beautiful that I always felt that I had the prime catch in any place we went, and she always had publicity things to attend, so it was lots of glitz, glamour, and fun. Dating her was enjoyable. The only problem was in trying to have a conversation. Her interests were limited, and although she was great as a shopping advisor because she knew about the latest trends, that provided little satisfaction in the way of pillow talk, and since I’m not all that interested in high fashion, it made little sense of us to grow closer. But now I was too debilitated to converse and I wondered if Sienna would be the one to call. She probably wasn’t mad at me, something many of the women I date seem to be after we break up, for whatever reason, usually something that makes no sense at all.

  Sienna is so beautiful, and her long, elegant hands could cool my feverish brow in an instant. But then I remembered. Once she had tried to make me breakfast at her house. She had burned the toast, admitting that she couldn’t cook. The few green plants that resided in her place had to be classified as formerly living. No, Sienna was not exactly the nurse type. She probably couldn’t even open a can of soup and heat it properly. The only living pet she’d ever had was a goldfish, and that died in the first week because she’d neglected to feed it, something she lacked the wit not to reveal.

  No, Sienna probably wouldn’t be any help to me at all. I was too sick to undress her and certainly too s
ick to make love to her, even if she undressed herself. She was unable to provide the care I needed, and clearly was more of a threat to my survival than a comfort during my convalescence. Would she even be able to call the emergency room or the mortuary if it came to that? Perhaps it was absurd to be morbid, but facts were facts. A woman like Sienna was useful only during healthy moments. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t called her in a while, and yes, I could probably call her again, possibly for New Year’s Eve, if I survived, but for now calling her would be a blunder.

  “I’m sick. I’m sick.” My nose was raw from wiping and blowing it on toilet paper. There were no tissues in the house. Holly would bring me tissues, and nasal spray even. Holly wouldn’t let a goldfish die, or me either. I reached for the phone, something that took all my energy. After a brief rest to regain my strength, I dialed her number again.

  “Hello?” she answered brightly. She was in a chipper mood, and I bet that would even improve when she realized that I was calling her because I missed and needed her. This was going to be her chance for happiness. “Hello?” she asked again, sounding a little annoyed. I wanted to reassure her that I was there, that it was Kevin, the man she loved, but I couldn’t say a word and so again we both hung up.

  It was impossible. I could call Holly, but I couldn’t make myself speak to her. Calling Sherry was out of the question. She and I hadn’t parted amicably at all. We had been having a nice affair, and I felt really affectionate toward her. It seemed that she was falling in love with me. Each date was as much fun as the last, and she was loving and sexy in bed. Her job as a sportswear buyer kept her busy and she seemed to have the mix of sensitivity and intelligence that I desire in a woman. Each week we grew closer, and that was why I chose to drift away from Sienna. It seemed like the right thing to do, to focus on the possibility of maybe falling in love with Sherry, and maybe she would be the woman for me at last.